Brett Terpstra » Write

Make amazing coffee without the hassle

Brett — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 16:48:02 +0000

I’ve really been enjoying my current coffee and tea setup, so I thought I’d share. There’s an investment involved, but you can set it up for anywhere from about $50 to $200, plus the ongoing cost of coffee beans and tea. Here’s the rundown.

The beans

Thanks to an old friend of mine (@tubetone), I’ve discovered Sweet Maria’s, a California-based coffee supplier which sells excellent coffee beans (primarily green) online. I don’t roast my own (yet), so I’ve been ordering espresso-roasted coffee beans from them, and they’re excellent. You can do whatever you like with preparation, but if you start with less-than-satisfactory beans, you might as well just stir up some Folgers. Research growers online and in your area, and find some good beans you can enjoy without the guilt of rainforest destruction and slave labor. It’s just more fun that way.

Grinding

I’ve been through an array of grinders in my life, but it’s only been recently that I’ve invested in a conical burr grinder. The one I got may not be perfect, but it works just fine. It quietly creates a grind to your exact specifications, without warming or burning the beans in the process. For this preparation setup, I grind to the fine end of the “drip” setting, and dial it to 20 seconds which gives me the exact amount of grounds I need and doesn’t require me watching over it. I keep the sealed hopper full of beans, and then just grind out what I need when I’m making coffee. There are plenty of options for conical burr grinders. The only reason I really prefer them over your average Black and Decker is granular control over the fineness of the grounds, but do what works for you (and your budget).

Brewing

Say what you will about the AeroPress ($18.99 on Amazon right now), which is essentially a glorified French Press, but it makes the best coffee I’ve ever had outside of an expensive espresso bar. It takes about 45 seconds to make a great cup of coffee, once you have the hot water and grounds ready. I’d recommend alternatives to this, but I haven’t found any. The AeroPress is inexpensive and, to rip off a phrase, it Just Works™. The optimum temperature for the AeroPress is 175°, and I’ve got that nailed and on tap with my Zojirushi water heater¹. I purchased it from Mandala Tea (friends of mine) for the purpose of brewing perfect tea, but it’s doing double duty now that I have my AeroPress. 175° works perfectly for green tea and coffee, so I generally just leave it set there and have hot water on tap.

Combine pre-heated water with a hopper of beans that have my pre-measured grounds in 20 seconds, I’ve got a great cup of coffee in about one minute. Daily cleanup is as simple as putting the mug in the dishwasher, popping the grounds out of the AeroPress (just aim toward the trash and push the plunger, then run the plunger under water) and sweeping up the grounds I inevitably scatter around the grinder.

These days I tend to wake up to a single, great cup of coffee, and then drink tea for the rest of the day. Mandala Tea keeps me well-stocked in hand-picked, loose leaf teas (I especially like the Ginseng Oolong), and I picked up a tea thermos from them that makes sipping all day a pleasure. In the end, I’ve found that a great cup of coffee doesn’t require a religious routine or a lot of hassle, just the right supplies. I’m not trying to sell anyone on any of this kit, it’s just what I’m using and it’s working great.

If you choose to boil your water on the stove and don’t have a thermometer handy, you can use the “shrimp eyes” technique. The Chinese refer to the point where water first starts to form bubbles at the bottom of the pot as “shimp eyes,” and a full boil is “whale eyes.” Shrimp eyes begin at approximately 175°, so just keep an eye out for them. ↩

Downtime apology and upcoming projects

Brett — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 17:55:59 +0000

I apologize for the recent downtime, which also affected the Clippable bookmarklet’s ability to work. Dreamhost has been pretty awful with downtime lately, and my attempt to switch to a different physical server resulted in a horrible mess for myself and several clients. I have to say that Dreamhost support was extremely helpful in repairing the situation… their support is the main reason I’ve stuck with them through the 4 hours of downtime I’d had up to that point. I’m not sure I’ll be able to swallow much more, but we’ll see if things run as smoothly as they’ve promised from here on out.

In other news, I have a new version of the Songza service–one that doesn’t require any additional libraries–which I’ll post soon. A couple of other little projects are in the works, including a service that interprets natural language dates for various purposes. I’m in Atlanta for a week, then I’ll be in San Francisco covering Macworld for TUAW, so it may be a bit, but I’ll be back!

Big Nerd Ranchero

Brett — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 17:42:43 +0000

I’m sitting at the airport in Minneapolis, waiting for a flight to Atlanta. I’m headed for Big Nerd Ranch for a week-long crash course in iPhone programming. I’ve done a little, but I think it will be a great way to start from the basics and fill in all of the holes in my knowledge. The thing is, I’m a little torn about the circumstances; Big Nerd Ranch is paying for this trip and providing a week of classes in order for me to review the facilities for The Unofficial Apple Weblog, where I’m a blogger. There’s nothing innately wrong with the situation, it’s essentially the same as receiving an NFR license for software to review, except for I can’t give away the license at the end, and it’s worth a whole lot more.

I want to maintain my “journalistic integrity,” but I’m not sure how this will turn out in the end. Big Nerd Ranch is pretty legendary, and I feel like it would be a waste to decline the invitation. I also feel like there are plenty of developers and would-be devs who would love to have a look at the offerings. I just don’t want to be pegged as providing reviews in exchange for anything. I’ve always been good about paying for software I’ve reviewed and continued using, returning review hardware (or buying it, in the case of the ViDock). I don’t want this to be a black mark on my integrity.

This is the plan, then: I’ll be letting the ranch speak for itself. I’ll be shooting video and doing interviews with the personalities involved, including Aaron Hillegass, which I’m pretty psyched about. I won’t be adding a lot of commentary or expressing my own opinions about the experience. If something’s great, it should come through as great without much help from me. I’ve noticed that people only question your integrity if you say positive things… but I doubt I’ll have much negative input in this case.

As I said, this is an opportunity I just couldn’t bear to pass up. It’s exciting and very generous of Big Nerd Ranch. What will be, will be, I guess.

Where I’ve been this week

Brett — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 21:55:20 +0000

Well, I’ve been out of touch with a lot of people for the last four days, and I thought I’d save some time and provide a place I could link everyone to for a quick explanation. On Tuesday evening, in the middle of what the weather service is calling our “worst storm in 20 years,” I started having stomach cramps. I won’t go into detail about what followed, but I’ll skip forward to the part where Aditi (my loving and amazingly dedicated wife) packed me into her 4-wheel drive Pathfinder and headed out to Community Memorial Hospital. After a brief survey, I was admitted for observation.

It looks, at this point, like a bacterial Colitis, which essentially just means an inflammation of the colon with bacterial sources, as opposed to sources that might not be curable. That would be an ideal diagnosis at this point, but I have to schedule a colonoscopy next week which will hopefully shed more definitive light on the situation. I sincerely thank everyone who’s been supporting me and sending warm wishes throughout this, and apologize to those I probably should have contacted by now but have been too overwhelmed to do so.

The photo (click to enlarge) is of me getting ready for my second shower; the bare patches on my chest are where the previous incarnation of the telemetry patches were located. The wrapping on my arm covers the IV site, which effectively disables that arm and leaves me to shower one-handed. Good times.